Dyn Gwrydd :: 2016 :: Green Man Part 3 - new to me live...

This post is going to feature five acts, all of which I have never seen live before, and all but one of them played live on Sunday.
The one that didn't played on Friday and is the artist that, when announced for Green Man 2016, I most wanted to see live and resulted in me committing to buying a ticket there and then. I could have been disappointed but, as I rather suspected, the exact opposite was true.

Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit, Mountain stage, Friday evening.

The fact remains that were he not performing I would have decided to go to Green Man anyway and still had a great time. Two of the other artists I was well aware of, as regards their recorded music, so that leaves two more; one of which I was faintly aware of and the other not at all. This is exactly why I like to focus on the small stages and the opening artists on any stage at festivals.

Opening the Mountain stage on Sunday was Margaret Glaspy. I have been listening to her recent LP 'Emotions and Math'. I like it a lot but I didn't anticipate quite how she would translate it to live performance. I think that a great many of the others there in the drizzle felt much the same way too. This was yet another live show that it would have been a tragedy to have missed.

Headlining the Walled Garden stage on Sunday evening was an artist from the Netherlands. She plays End Of The Road Festival 2016 too.

Amber Arcades is the performance name of Annelotte de Graaf. The LP is Fading Lines.

Late Sunday afternoon I availed myself of the tented darkness of the Far Out stage to see a band from Canada with whose music I am well acquainted but had never previously had the opportunity to see play live. Its core is Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas and heavy psychedelic rock is what they do but it not necessarily all of the gloomy kind...

The Besnard Lakes:  husband and wife dualling on 12-string guitar and bass in a smoky haze.

Then this, an artist whom I had never heard about until I perused the artist list in the programme on Thursday afternoon. Janileigh Cohen from Bolton has the five-song 'As a Child EP' to sell. That might not appear to be much of a pitch but sometimes you just can't tell...

 Green Man Rising stage, early Sunday afternoon, and a very rare standing-ovation from a seated audience.

Canada again - New music 2010, part 4

It is almost a week since I last posted, which pains me somewhat, but then it takes time to listen and do the research. While it wasn't my intention to do a second post on new Canadian music straight after the last one a certain flexibility is a necessity.

This one will be more concerned with returning artists and the first is this and my impression is that is going to be a fine continuation of their form. Yes it is true that this is not music for the masses, rather that for those who want to have it with rather eerie cold-war-era lyrics...

Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas, The Besnard Lakes, can be relied on to do just that.

This is once again something of a collaborative effort and I really doubt that the new album will disappoint. 'The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night' is released by Jagjaguwar records, on vinyl, CD and download, on 8 March 2010 and is well and truly on my wants list.

Since I wrote last Monday I have learned of a few more new releases from well established Canadian artists...
Arcade Fire are recording their third album, and it better be good, but I know of no title or release date for that. Stars are recording an album, which they say will be released in the summer and Broken Social Scene are also planning a return, complete with a new album, in 2010.

Most remarkable of all is that, after eighteen years and more line-up changes than Sugababes, Martha & The Muffins return in 2010 with a new studio album and perhaps now the time is right.